Cruickshank v. Lambros

• Decision Date: 27 May 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 2:20-cv-60
• Parties: STEVEN M. CRUICKSHANK, Plaintiff, v. JAMES LAMBROS et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

STEVEN M. CRUICKSHANK, Plaintiff, v. JAMES LAMBROS et al., Defendants.

Case No. 2:20-cv-60

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN NORTHERN DIVISION

May 27, 2020

Honorable Robert J. Jonker

OPINION

This is a civil rights action brought by a pretrial detainee under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996) (PLRA), the Court is required to dismiss any prisoner action brought under federal law if the complaint is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A; 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c). The Court must read Plaintiff's pro se complaint indulgently, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972), and accept Plaintiff's allegations as true, unless they are clearly irrational or wholly incredible. Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992). Applying these standards, the Court will dismiss Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim.

Discussion

I. Factual allegations

Plaintiff presently is a pretrial detainee at the Chippewa County Correctional Facility (CCCF). The events about which he complains occurred at that facility. Plaintiff sues the CCCF, 50th Circuit Court (Chippewa County) Judge James Lambros, Chippewa County Sheriff Michael Bitner, and Chippewa County Lieutenant Paul Stanaway.

Plaintiff alleges that the individual Defendants are responsible for the adoption of a law-library policy for the CCCF that violates his rights under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Attaching a copy of the CCCF Inmate/Detainee Handbook, Plaintiff contends that ICE detainees are treated differently than American citizens for the purpose of accessing the library. He specifically references the following portion of the handbook:

LIBRARY

A book cart will be brought to your housing unit. You may select reading material from the cart. You are responsible for returning the reading material when the book cart is brought back to your housing unit in a neat and orderly manner. No more than (3) three books will be allowed in your sleeping quarters at one time, other than religious or legal material, and authorized school books. We will accept books sent in from a book distributor such as Amazon and Book World. Once books are sent in they become property of Chippewa County Correctional Facility.

You may obtain research material for criminal court cases through your attorney. Inmates and detainees will have access to soft cover law books and other legal materials provided by the inmate/detainee's attorney. If you are representing yourself and the court has not appointed an attorney to help you, you may get research material through the court.

We do not have a law library.

We do have the Lexis Nexis system for ICE detainees only.

ICE detainees will have access to the Lexis Nexis Law Library. Access to the Lexis Nexis Law Library is granted via request from the detainee and/or availability of the classroom. If the classroom is unavailable at the time of the request, the detainee will be granted access once the classroom becomes available.

Upon request, each ICE detainee shall be permitted to use the Lexis Nexis law library for a minimum of five (5) hours per week. Additional time in the law library shall be accommodated to the extent possible, consistent with the orderly and secure operation of the facility. Detainees housed in administrative and/or disciplinary segregation shall have the same accessas the general population unless security concerns require limitations. Upon request, ICE detainees may assist other detainees in researching and preparing legal documents except when such assistance poses a security risk. This assistance shall be voluntary. Detainees are restricted from charging a fee and/or [ac]cepting anything of value for assisting.

Inmate/detainees are permitted to retain all legal materials while housed in CCCF unless the material creates a safety, security, and/or sanitation risk(s). Large amounts of legal material will be stored in the Sergeant's office and available upon request. Requests for access to stored legal material will be granted no later than twenty[-]four (24) hours after receiving the request.

If for some reason the Lexis Nexis computer is not working correctly, notify your Unit officer.

(CCCF Handbook, ECF No. 1-1, PageID.17 (emphasis in original).) Plaintiff argues that, under the handbook, he is treated less favorably as a citizen of the United States than is a non-citizen ICE detainee, presumably in violation his right to equal protection.¹ Plaintiff also claims that he is denied his right to legal research, in violation of the First Amendment.

Plaintiff seeks injunctive relief, together with monetary damages.

II. Failure to state a claim

A complaint may be dismissed for failure to state a claim if it fails "'to give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'" Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). While a complaint need not contain detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's allegations must include more than labels and conclusions. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) ("Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice."). The court must determine whether the complaint contains "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. "A claimhas facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679. Although the plausibility standard is not equivalent to a "'probability requirement,' . . . it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). "[W]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not 'show[n]'—that the pleader is entitled to relief." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)); see also Hill v. Lappin, 630 F.3d 468, 470-71 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding that the Twombly/Iqbal plausibility standard applies to dismissals of prisoner cases on initial review under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915A(b)(1) and 1915(e)(2)(B)(i)).

To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the federal Constitution or laws and must show that the deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988); Street v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 102 F.3d 810, 814 (6th Cir. 1996). Because § 1983 is a method for vindicating federal rights, not a source of substantive rights itself, the first step in an action under § 1983 is to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed. Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271 (1994).

III. Correctional Facility As Defendant

Plaintiff sues the CCCF. The correctional facility is a building, not an entity capable of being sued in its own right. However, construing Plaintiff's pro se complaint with all required liberality, Haines, 404 U.S. at 520, the Court assumes that Plaintiff intended to sue Chippewa County. Chippewa County may not be held vicariously liable for the actions of its employees under § 1983. See Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60 (2011); City of Canton v.Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 392 (1989); Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). Instead, a county is liable only when its official policy or custom causes the injury. Id.

In matters pertaining to the conditions of the county correctional facility and to the operation of the deputies, the sheriff is the policymaker for the county. Mich. Comp. Laws § 51.75 (sheriff has the "charge and custody" of the jails in his county); Mich. Comp. Laws § 51.281 (sheriff prescribes rules and regulations for conduct of prisoners); Mich. Comp. Laws § 51.70 (sheriff may appoint deputies and revoke appointments at any time); Kroes v. Smith, 540 F. Supp. 1295, 1298 (E.D. Mich. 1982) (the sheriff of "a given county is the only official with direct control over the duties, responsibilities, and methods of operation of deputy sheriffs" and thus, the sheriff "establishes the policies and customs described in Monell"). Thus, the court looks to the allegations in Plaintiff's complaint to determine whether Plaintiff has alleged that the sheriff has established a policy or custom which caused Plaintiff to be deprived of a constitutional right.

Upon review, it appears that Plaintiff has alleged that the county judge and the county sheriff, as parties responsible for setting policy for accessing legal materials, have adopted a correctional facility policy that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. As a consequence, although the CCCF must be dismissed, the Court concludes that Plaintiff intends to allege a claim against Chippewa County and will consider Plaintiff's claims accordingly.

IV. Access to the Courts

Plaintiff argues that he has been denied his First Amendment right to legal materials. Presumably, he intends to allege that the lack of a law library and the policy limiting access to Lexis Nexis deprives him of his First Amendment right to access the courts.

It is well established that prisoners have a constitutional right of access to the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821 (1977). The principal issue in Bounds was whether the states must protect the right of access to the courts by providing law libraries or alternative sources oflegal information for prisoners. Id. at 817. The Court further noted that in addition to law libraries or alternative sources of legal knowledge, the states must provide indigent...